The Book of Polly: A Novel

Willow Havens is 10 years old and obsessed with the fear that her mother will die. Her mother, Polly, is a cantankerous, take-no-prisoners Southern woman who lives to chase varmints, drink margaritas, and antagonize the neighbors - and she sticks out like a sore thumb among the young, modern mothers of their small conventional Texas town. She was in her late 50s when Willow was born, so Willow knows she's here by accident, a late-life afterthought.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: A Novel

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.

Be Frank with Me: A Novel

Reclusive literary legend M. M. "Mimi" Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme, she's flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies - with a few stipulations: no Ivy Leaguers or English majors. Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.

Yellow Crocus

Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

The irascible A. J. Fikry, owner of Island Books - the only bookstore on Alice Island - has already lost his wife. Now his most prized possession, a rare book, has been stolen from right under his nose in the most embarrassing of circumstances. The store itself, it seems, will be next to go. One night upon closing, he discovers a toddler in his children’s section with a note from her mother pinned to her Elmo doll: I want Maya to grow up in a place with books and among people who care about such kinds of things. I love her very much, but I can no longer take care of her.

Britt-Marie Was Here: A Novel

Britt-Marie can't stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis.

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)

For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know.

The Silver Linings Playbook: A Novel

During his years in a neural-health facility, Pat Peoples has formulated a theory about silver linings. He believes that his life is a movie produced by God, that his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and that if he succeeds, his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki, and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy.

Moon Over Manifest

Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was. Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it's just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos.

The Invention of Wings: A Novel

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Beautiful Ruins

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

Publisher's Summary

Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.

There, while Serena Jane's beauty proves to be her biggest curse, Truly finds her calling - the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques - and, in reckoning with her demons, the possibility of love in unexpected places.

What the Critics Say

"Baker's bangup debut mixes the exuberant eccentricities of John Irving's Garp, Anne Tyler's relationship savvy and the plangent voice of Margaret Atwood....It's got all the earmarks of a hit -- infectious and lovable narrator, a dash of magic, an impressive sweep, and a heartrending but not treacly family drama. It'll be a shame if this doesn't race up the best seller lists." (Publishers Weekly)
"The Little Giant of Aberdeen County grabs you from its astonishing beginning to its riveting conclusion. Its charms are multitude -- a wholly unique love story, a devastating friendship, a bewitching multi-generational history, all brought to an apex in the larger-than-life personage of Truly, a heroine simultaneously infused with a quiet and dignified grace and peculiar sense of purpose. This dark-yet-rolicking debut is a must-read." (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants)

I really enjoyed about the first 2/3 of this book, charmed by the engaging and wise-beyond-her-years protagonist Truly. But as the story moved toward its conclusion, I felt the author forcing actions on her heroine that felt more in service to an envisioned resolution and less true to the character she had crafted so well. In the end, Truly becomes willfully uncurious, stubborn, and ultimately less appealing.

I generally liked the narration, but wasn't thrilled with her insistence on using a gruff voice for every adult male character.

Life long fan of the mystery story. I like books where something actually happens, so history and biography are favorites of mine also. I also think that even good books are improved tremendously when an actor performs the narration.

This is a wonderfully quirky romance among people who are very imperfect. Terrific narration captures Truly's frustration of being too large in a small town. Excellent character development makes the reader care about the residents of Aberdeen, and the twists and turns in the plot kept me interested until the very end.

The author's use of simile was extremely distracting. I couldn't decide whether this was deliberate, or whether she should fire her editor. I came to the conclusion that it had to be deliberate and her editor probably quit. The story was okay although I'm not going to rush to read anything else by this author. This was my first audible.com download and I am quite impressed by the quality and convenience.

This book was ok. Not terrific, like the reviews had led me to believe. The characters were not very deep or consistent. I never really believed what Truly was feeling or really began to understand who she was. The multitude of bizarre metaphors and similes sometimes seemed gratuitous - put there as filler, or because the author felt that one was needed - but they were often incongruous. The most telling part of a book for me is when I do not come to care very much for any of the characters or sympathize with them in any way. The plot development kept you hoping, and on edge just enough to want to finish the story, but in the end, it was unsatisfying.

What a wonderful read! I was sorry it ended. I loved the simplicity and strength of the main character Truly, and the imagery the author created for us. The narrator was perfect...she sounds like Kathy Bates. I'm looking forward to further work from Tiffany Baker!

Oh how I enjoyed this book. It was artistically grand with the best visualizations inspired by the author. The metaphors were often more fascinating then the content. This is a very cute book and doesnt leave you screaming about how stupid the characters are for taking the abuse dolled out to them. The character Truly makes you believe in the inner strength of people.

The main character of this book, Truly, never seems convincingly real. She tries to appear thoughtful by constantly speaking in similes, but she doesn't consider the consequences of her actions or the choices that are available to her. She's frustratingly unable to see things from other people's perspectives, and hides herself from others to a ridiculous degree. Truly, who faces many challenges from early in her life, should be a sympathetic character, but instead I was constantly frustrated by her.

Truly narrates the book herself, but reveals plot points to the reader early in the story that the character doesn't become aware of until much later. Knowing the answers to many of the mysteries being mulled by Truly makes what could have been exciting twists dull instead.

Although the book deals with a variety of interesting topics, the discussions were generally unsatisfying.

The narrator really did an injustice to this story. I think I might have enjoyed reading it, but the narration made the characters seem dim-witted and dull. Not sure if Ms. McDuffie was going for a northern NY accent or what, but her inflections just sounded like a Bronx cheer. The story line was interesting and I think the review about not being able to sympathize with the characters had more to do with the narrator than the author. Don't waste a credit, pick it up at the library.

The tone of the book is very down from the start. Once Truly deliberately killed the neighbor's cat to test an herbal concoction, I put the thing down for good. Hard to sympathize with an abuser of animals. (This happened quite early in the story, so it isn't much of a spoiler.) Perhaps it gets better past the point at which I was too discusted to continue? It certainly got some good reviews.

If you want a truly exceptional story with heart and 3 superb readers, try "The Help."

I was not a fan of this reader, who's pace was slow. She may be great for another kind of book, esp. a children's story.